Friday, June 11, 2004

06.11.2004 10:42 A.M.
Illegal aliens arrested on Interstate 91
The Associated Press
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, Vt. (AP) - Two illegal aliens were arrested at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 91 last week, bringing the number arrested since it opened in December to 287.

The 287 aliens were from 45 different countries, said Leslie Lawson, assistant chief patrol agent. The country with the highest number of apprehensions was Mexico with 69, she said, followed by Brazil with 39 and Ecuador with 24.

"The vast majority of those were either entering illegally on the southwest border of the United States, or they came in legally as an immigrant and then didn't depart," she said.

Lawson said an illegal alien might be working for a construction company elsewhere in the country that bids on a job in Vermont, causing the employee to relocate.

Non-citizens are required to carry their immigration documents with them.

"Often some folks do not, and that will obviously slow us up in any inspection we make," she said.

If a person is not an illegal alien but is breaking the law in another way, she said local or state police are called.

The state of Vermont is included in the Swanton border sector, one of 21 sectors that cover the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The sector includes 261 miles of international boundary ending at the Maine/New Hampshire state line on the east. The sector also includes five counties in New York and three counties in New Hampshire.

There are six border checkpoints in the sector, but they are not always active, Lawson said. The Border Patrol also runs temporary checkpoints that last four or six hours or a few days, she said. The I-91 checkpoint has been run every day, she said.

Since the checkpoint was established Dec. 28, no new checkpoints have been established in the Swanton sector, she said.